In early October 2018 Google made public that they had for some time been aware of a software bug that allowed illicit access to G+ users personal information, not including personal communication or phone numbers. The information potentially accessible included email addresses, birth dates, profile photos and gender, and affected up to 500,000 G+ accounts, reportedly.

Google announced they would be shutting down all consumer functionality of G+ over the next 10 months. Google said it would keep the enterprise version used by G Suite business customers.